Saturday, August 22, 2015

As previously noted on this blog, hypocrite extraordinaire - and sexual predator - Josh Duggar has been "outed" thanks to the disclosure of hacked information from the Ashley Madison adultery site. But Duggar is hardly along in the ranks of the "godly folk", professional christian crowd and, of course, anti-gay Republicans who are proving that it is they themselves, not gays, who are the real threat to the "sanctity of marriage." So far joining Duggar are first, Christian YouTube star Sam Rader, as reported by Joe Jervis:

Christian YouTube star Sam Rader, who
first came to our attention for a viral clip in which he tried to
convince his five year-old daughter that gay marriage is a very bad
thing, has been busted for having an Ashley Madison account. Last night
Rader posted a clip in which he announces that Jesus has already
forgiven him. . . . The Raders reportedly make into the mid-six figures from their YouTube channel.

Perhaps even more fun is the "outing" of anti-gay Executive Director of the Louisiana GOP, Jason Doré, who is incredibly claiming he had an Ashley Madison account for "opposition research." Admittedly, the GOP trends towards being stupid, but even local Louisiana yahoos may find Doré excuse to be too far fetched to believe. The Times Picayune looks at his ridiculous attempt to mount a smike screen:

Louisiana GOP executive director Jason Doré said Thursday that his
name is on a list of accounts released as part of the Ashley Madison
cheating website hack because the site was used for "opposition
research."

The director of the statewide Republican Party said via text message
that an account was created under his name and his former personal
credit card billing address in connection with the work of his law firm,
Doré Jeansonne. He declined to say who he was using the account for.

The database shows Doré spent $175.98 on the site, which he signed up for in 2013.

Ashley Madison, the site known for connecting people looking to cheat
on their spouses, was targeted by hackers and the data of millions of
account holders was released Thursday.

The Louisiana GOP has been outspoken about issues connected to infidelity in the past, having asked former U.S. Rep. Vance McAllister to resign his 5th District congressional seat last year after he was caught on camera kissing a married staffer. GOP Chairman Roger Villere Jr. did not respond to a request for comment.

As Towleroad notes, Bill Maher is having a field day with the outing of these lying hypocrites:

Career homophobe Josh Duggar’s latest fall from “grace” proved to be the perfect fodder for Bill Maher on Friday’s Real Time monologue, with the late night host saying “forget building a wall around Mexico, let’s build one around Josh Duggar!”

Regarding Duggar’s apology, Maher had this to say:

“It must be so great to be an evangelical
Christian. You know cause Jesus always forgives no matter what you do. I
ask Jesus forgiveness, ah there it is again.”

Maher also poked fun at Alabama being the most adulterous state in the Ashley Madison hack:

“You know can’t say they didn’t warn us.
They said when gay people get the right to marry, the Christians are
going to go ‘ah, f–k it'”

Donald Trump continues to play to the racism that has become one of the strongest undercurrents of today's Republican Party. Not surprisingly, he found a sizable audience in Mobile, Alabama last night, albeit only about half the numbers Trump had boasted about prior to the event. I lived in Mobile for four years over three decades ago and in many ways the state is more extreme now than it was back then. I continue to wonder what is being added to the drinking water. Perhaps the only good news is that Trumps cavalcade of racism drew a smaller crowd than expected. Perhaps there is still hope for Alabama. Here are highlights on the spectacle from Politico:

MOBILE, Ala. — It was immigration,
not segregation, that brought some 20,000 southerners — far fewer than
predicted — out for Donald Trump on Friday night, but the ghost of George
Wallace loomed large.

Wallace, an avowed segregationist,
was the last presidential candidate to win electoral votes as a third-party
candidate. The threat of Trump doing so, propelled by a hardline immigration
stance that many have condemned as racist, looms over the Republican Party now
as it did over the Democratic Party then, even as the enthusiasm of his
following, for once, fell far short of expectations.

Trump also panned birthright
citizenship as a bad deal for the U.S., saying, “We’re the only place just
about that’s stupid enough to do it.” Trump’s recently released immigration
plan calls for ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented
immigrants, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, according to the legal
consensus, though Trump disputes that point.

Trump invited Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, one of Congress’s most ardent
immigration hardliners who helped the businessman craft his immigration plan,
to the podium, where the two embraced.

He also attacked his favorite
punching bag, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, on the issue. “ Jeb Bush, ugh,”
said Trump, pausing for dramatic effect, before calling the former governor
“totally in favor of Common Core, weak on immigration.”

There were also vestiges of
Wallace’s Alabama, including on the sample editions of “The First Freedom”
newspaper one man handed out to drivers as they entered the parking lot. The
paper’s front page included a story about “black-on-white crime in South
Carolina” and an editor’s note about German media’s silence about “the actual
programs these peaceful ‘neo-nazis’ stand for.”

The vast majority of supporters
where white: of over 1,000 people waiting to enter on the east of the Ladd
Peebles Stadium at 5 p.m., eight were black.

Marty Hughes, 47, wore a camouflage
hat with Confederate flag detailing and said he liked Trump’s stances on
immigration and taxes. He called the removal this year of Confederate flags
from government property across much of the South “stupidity” and said he
didn’t think a President Trump would stand for it.

[T]he city said it expected 40,000
supporters at the rally, but various media outlets estimated that the total was
in the ballpark of 15-20,000, leaving the stadium looking less than half full.

A piece in the Kansas City Star looks at the obscene salary of anti-gay bigot Franklin Graham - who has parlayed his fathers fame into a truly lucrative gig - and other leaders of so-called Christian charities. The take away is that for those who have no real skills, waving a Bible around, manufacturing "threats" to the family and civilization, marketing hate, and duping the ignorant and gullible can make for a very, very good living. In almost any realm other than religion, many of these folks would be seen for what they are - con artists and parasites living off of others. Note that is what I refer to as the "professional Christin" crowd that is raking in the big bucks compared to many pastors who make paltry amounts in comparison. These professional Christians obviously have forgotten the parable about selling all of one's belongings and following Christ's Gospel message. And yes, thanks to undeserved tax-exempt status that many of these "charities" hold, all of us are indirectly subsidizing these obscene salaries. Here are some story highlights:

Franklin Graham’s annual compensation of $880,000, revealed in a
Charlotte Observer story, has some worrying that too many top Christian
nonprofit leaders as well as pastors are seeing themselves as CEOs
instead of as God’s servants.

Graham, son of renowned evangelist
Billy Graham, is head of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief
agency based in Boone, N.C.

“Basically they are saying if Satan
pays well, God should pay better,” said Maria Dixon, a Southern
Methodist University professor of corporate communications and public
affairs.

CEOs at the top 50 U.S. charities, including Samaritan’s Purse, earn in
the $350,000 to $450,000 range, which makes Graham’s $622,000 salary
from his aid organization alone about 40 percent to 50 percent higher
than average, according to a Forbes story. He receives the rest of his
$258,000 compensation as CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association.

By contrast,
pastor salaries at the nation’s biggest Christian churches are much
lower for all but a select number. Only 3 percent of churches with more
than 1,600 people in attendance pay senior pastors more than $300,000,
said Warren Bird, research director at Leadership Network. At the other
extreme, a recent study by the National Association of Church Business
Administration found that the average American pastor with a
congregation of 300 people earns a salary of less than $28,000 a year.

In a 2011 comparison of megachurch pastors’ salaries, two senior
pastors made $1 million and $1.1 million. Others were a fourth to less
than half of that.

Among the exceptions: Southern Baptist the Rev.
Ed Young, senior pastor at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas,
pulled in well over $1 million, according to a 2012 Dallas television
news report. And in 2013, his last year as pastor at Seattle’s Mars Hill
Church, the Rev. Mark Driscoll was drawing a $607,000 package, with a
$150,000 raise promised.

the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability asks for more. “Compensation-setting
practices should be consistent with generally accepted biblical truths
and practices,” according to its guidelines.

“It’s a moral issue
particularly for a man of faith,” Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at
the Georgetown University Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership,
told the Observer. “And also you have to remember that (compensation is)
partly paid for by the taxpayer. In a sense, we the taxpayers are
subsidizing Frank Graham’s salary and his relatives who are paid.”

Not all of the big Christian charity CEOs are making huge salaries. Lutheran
Charities, a $21 billion organization, pays $181,858 to its
highest-paid employee. At Cru, the college campus ministry, the highest
salary is $150,787, according to Forbes magazine.

Although modern science and knowledge confirms that homosexuality is both normal and simply one form of sexuality in nature, conservative religion and its continuing embrace of ignorance and reliance on the writings of unknown Bronze Age authors or those who would likely be deemed mentally ill due to "hearing voices" and "God speaking to them continues to be the scourge of the existence of LGBT individuals in far too many parts of the world. At present, fundamentalists Islam is perhaps the most dangerous scourge, but throughout time, Christianity has certainly wracked up plenty of death and misery for those who were born LGBT. Now, the United Nations is working to draw attention to the plight of those not born in conformity with the beliefs of the ignorant, simple minded, and power mad who use religion to justify brutality and murder against others. A column in the New York Times looks at the development. Here are highlights:

AS
he tried to concentrate on his final college exams, he couldn’t erase
the terrifying images in his head, an endless replay of a video he’d
seen. It showed two men being killed — their necks noosed, their bodies
dragged through the streets and set on fire. They had burned, he told me, because they were gay. Just like him.

Islamic extremism was sweeping through Iraq,
and terror coursed through his veins. It became unbearable when, in
mid-2014, the Islamic State seized control of the city where he lived.
He fled, traveling furtively across Iraq for nearly a month, looking for
a point of exit, finally finding one and boarding a flight to a city in
the Middle East where he wouldn’t be in danger.

“The
greatest moment of my life was stepping on that plane,” said the man,
in his mid-20s, who asked that I not use his name or any identifying
details, lest harm come to family members back in Iraq. “I was able to
breathe again. I hadn’t been breathing.”

On Monday, he will tell his story at a special United Nations Security Council meeting on L.G.B.T. rights. American officials involved in it arranged for me to talk with him in advance by phone.

Although
Monday’s discussion isn’t a formal one that Security Council members
are required to attend, it’s nonetheless the first time that the council
has held a meeting of any kind that’s dedicated to the persecution of
L.G.B.T. people, according to Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

And
it’s an example, she told me, of a determined push by the United States
and other countries to integrate L.G.B.T. rights into all discussions
of human rights by international bodies like the U.N.

There have also been enormous victories for L.G.B.T. people in nations as different as Nepal and Malta over the last few years. This year alone, a popular referendum legalized same-sex marriage in Ireland and a Supreme Court decision did so in the United States.

But,
Power noted, “Unfortunately, internationally, those trends are not
being paralleled in very large swaths of the world.” This divide is
becoming ever starker, creating new diplomatic tensions, challenges and
responsibilities for countries like the United States.

[Obama] said
at a news conference with the Kenyan president, going on to add: “The
idea that they are going to be treated differently or abused because of
who they love is wrong. Full stop.”

Our
own country can’t wholly congratulate itself. Federal legislation to
outlaw employment discrimination based on sexual orientation has
languished for many years. But American officials were among those who pushed back
successfully earlier this year when Russia fought to overturn a policy
to grant benefits to the same-sex spouses of U.N. employees.

The
Security Council meeting, which the United States is co-hosting with
Chile, will focus on the Islamic State’s brutality against gays as a way
of getting countries who might not be sensitive to the plight of gays,
but who have profound concerns about the Islamic State, to pay
attention.

Even so, there’s no telling whether such Security Council members
as Chad, Angola, Nigeria, Russia and China will send high-level
representatives or any representatives at all. The meeting is also open
to countries that aren’t on the council, but it’s closed to the public
and members of the news media.

Power
said that it’s vital that the Islamic State’s treatment of gays not be
omitted from discussions of its atrocities against other vulnerable
groups.

And that’s partly because the terror felt by gays in areas controlled by
the Islamic State is an extreme form of their victimization in far too
many other places. It’s a summons to action for enlightened countries
that could open their arms wider to L.G.B.T. refugees.

I continue to believe that religion, especially fundamentalist religion of all faiths, is one of the great evils in the world. It is a pestilence that needs to be eradicated from the face of the Earth.

Brace yourself for spittle flecked rants that "the gay agenda" is turning America's youth gay or at least bisexual. A study (which can be found here) that followed on the heels of one in the UK looked surveyed Americans an just shy of a third of young Americans said that they aren’t “100% heterosexual." Bryan Fischer, Maggie Gallagher and Victoria Cobb will be no doubt apoplectic. Older Americans claim to be much less bisexual, although the older generations are much more experienced in denial - both to themselves and the rest of society. The Advocate looks at the study findings. Here are story excerpts:

[H]alf of the U.K.’s young adults aren’t
“100% heterosexual,” new research indicates one-third of American young
adults feel the same way. [R]esearchers for YouGov used a modified
Kinsey scale to measure sexuality by asking participants to place
themselves on a range between "exclusively heterosexual" and
"exclusively homosexual."

According to the study, “Overall 78%
of Americans say that they are completely heterosexual while 4% say that
they are completely homosexual. 16% of American adults say that they
fall somewhere in between. In this group, the bulk of the respondents
(10%) said that they are more heterosexual than homosexual, while 3% put
themselves in the middle, and another 3% say that they are
predominantly homosexual.”

Yet a percentage of those who
classified themselves as heterosexual admitted to having same-sex
experiences. “A large number of Americans who classify themselves as
heterosexual still admit to having had same sex experiences. 12% of
heterosexual American adults say that they have had a sexual experience
with someone of the same sex. “

Notably, the study found that
the older someone is, the less likely they are to say their sexuality is
on the bisexual spectrum. According to the researchers, “24% of people
aged 30 to 44 say that they're somewhere on the scale of bisexuality,
compared to 8% or less of over-45s.”

Friday, August 21, 2015

I often lament that today's republican Party uses racism, homophobia, nativism, anti-immigrant bias, and other types of division to con voters into voting against their own financial and economic interest. Stated another way, their bigotry towards others is used to dupe them into voting for GOP politicians who are raping their futures as they work for a new Gilded Age. Now, in typical form, Bernie Sanders has shouted this truth out. He has also slammed members of the mainstream media for their failure to look at serious issues and expose the toxicity of GOP policies for the average American. Here are highlights of Sanders' call out via Towleroad:

Speaking after a campaign appearance in Iowa, Sanders said same-sex
marriage is among issues Republicans have used to divide people to get
them to vote against their own economic interests:

“I think the Republicans have done a
brilliant job over the years — they’re very smart guys — in dividing
people on a million different issues. They divide people on gay
marriage. They divide people on abortion. They divide people on
immigration. And what my job is, and it’s not just in blue states,
believe me, we’re going to go to red states, we’re going to conservative
states, is to bring working people together around an agenda that works
for their kids and works for their parents. Raising the minimum wage to
15 bucks an hour, having a trade policy that creates jobs in America,
not in China, making sure all our of kids can get a college education
regardless of their income, fighting for pay equity for women workers.
We have an agenda that I believe can bring people together, and when we
do that, we’re going to win this election very easily I think.”

Sanders’ comments were part of an epic response to reporters who’ve
continued to try to get him to attack Democratic frontrunner Hillary
Clinton. In response to a question from a Wall Street Journal
reporter about his differences with Clinton, Sanders said “the corporate
media likes to talk about all kinds of issues except the most important
issues”:

“Time after time, I’m being asked to
criticize Hillary Clinton, that’s the sport that you guys like. The
reason this campaign is doing well is because we’re talking about the
issues that impact the American people. … The issue I want to be talking
about is the collapse of the American middle class. You guys don’t to
write about? Is that an important issue? The need for millions of
decent-paying jobs, the obscenity of the kind of income and wealth
inequality that we have today. The reason our campaign is doing well is
because people are responding to those issues, so I’m not going to get
into the game of sitting around attacking Hillary Clinton.”

In other words, the media’s endless game of gotcha — just like the
GOP’s opposition to same-sex marriage — is nothing more than a
distraction.

America still has not extricated itself or the Middle East from the instability and chaos triggered by the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq and an utter mishandling of Afghanistan (assuming, of course, anyone can fix the mess that has been Afghanistan for centuries). Now, Republicans are quick to condemn the Iran nuclear arms agreement and seem ready to rush America into another ground war in the Middle East that America cannot win, squandering American lives and billions, if not trillions, of dollars in the process. Part of the GOP's bellicosity stems from the Christofascist base of the party that has near orgasms at the thought of killing Muslims and non-Christians. Another part comes from GOP ties to the so-called defense industry that needs unending war to maximize profits - think Halliburton and Dick Cheney. The last part comes from today's GOP and its detachment from objective reality and the fantasy world in which it exists. A piece in Salon looks at the danger the GOP poses to the world:

Throughout the world there is great relief and optimism about the
nuclear deal reached in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 nations, the
five veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. Most
of the world apparently shares the assessment of the U.S. Arms Control
Association that “the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action establishes a
strong and effective formula for blocking all of the pathways by which
Iran could acquire material for nuclear weapons for more than a
generation and a verification system to promptly detect and deter
possible efforts by Iran to covertly pursue nuclear weapons that will
last indefinitely.”

There
are, however, striking exceptions to the general enthusiasm: the United
States and its closest regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. . . . Prominent sectors of U.S. power and opinion share the stand of the two
regional allies and so are in a state of virtual hysteria over “the
Iranian threat.” Sober commentary in the United States, pretty much
across the spectrum, declares that country to be “the gravest threat to
world peace.”

The current Republican primaries illustrate the proclaimed reasons.
Senator Ted Cruz, considered one of the intellectuals among the crowded
field of presidential candidates, warns that
Iran may still be able to produce nuclear weapons and could someday use
one to set off an Electro Magnetic Pulse that “would take down the
electrical grid of the entire eastern seaboard” of the United States,
killing “tens of millions of Americans.”

The two most likely
winners, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker, are battling over whether to bomb Iran immediately after being elected or after the first Cabinet meeting. The one candidate with some foreign policy experience, Lindsey Graham, describes the deal as “a death sentence for the state of Israel,” which will certainly come as a surprise to Israeli intelligence and strategic analysts — and which Graham knows to be utter nonsense, raising immediate questions about actual motives.

Keep in mind that the Republicans long ago abandoned the pretense of functioning as a normal congressional party. They have, . . . become a “radical insurgency” that scarcely seeks to participate in normal congressional politics.

Since
the days of President Ronald Reagan, the party leadership has plunged
so far into the pockets of the very rich and the corporate sector that
they can attract votes only by mobilizing parts of the population that
have not previously been an organized political force. Among them are
extremist evangelical Christians, now probably a majority of Republican
voters; remnants of the former slave-holding states; nativists who are
terrified that “they” are taking our white Christian Anglo-Saxon country
away from us; . . .

Israel, of course, is one of the three nuclear powers, along with India
and Pakistan, whose weapons programs have been abetted by the United
States and that refuse to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). . . . . The NPT, in turn, is the most important arms control treaty of all.
If it were adhered to, it could end the scourge of nuclear weapons.

Repeatedly,
implementation of the resolution has been blocked by the U.S., most
recently by President Obama in 2010 and again in 2015, as Dhanapala and
Duarte point out, “on behalf of a state that is not a party to the NPT
and is widely believed to be the only one in the region possessing
nuclear weapons” — a polite and understated reference to Israel.

A nuclear-weapons-free Middle East would be a straightforward way to
address whatever threat Iran allegedly poses, but a great deal more is
at stake in Washington’s continuing sabotage of the effort in order to
protect its Israeli client. After all, this is not the only case in
which opportunities to end the alleged Iranian threat have been
undermined by Washington, raising further questions about just what is
actually at stake.
There is also a world outside the U.S. and although its views are not
reported in the mainstream here, perhaps they are of some interest.
According to the leading western polling agencies (WIN/Gallup
International), the prize for “greatest threat” is won by
the United States. The rest of the world regards it as the gravest
threat to world peace by a large margin. In second place, far below, is
Pakistan, its ranking probably inflated by the Indian vote. Iran is
ranked below those two, along with China, Israel, North Korea, and
Afghanistan.

The authoritative SIPRI review of global armaments ranks the U.S., as usual, way in the lead
in military expenditures. China comes in second with about one-third
of U.S. expenditures. Far below are Russia and Saudi Arabia, which are
nonetheless well above any western European state. Iran isscarcely mentioned. . . . . the Gulf Cooperation Council states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — outspend Iran on arms by a factor of eight, an imbalance that goes back decades. . . . When it comes to Israel, of course, the imbalance is even greater.

The United States, as is well known, holds the world championship title
in regime change and Israel is no laggard either. The most destructive
of its invasions of Lebanon in 1982 was explicitly aimed at regime
change, as well as at securing its hold on the occupied territories.
The pretexts offered were thin indeed and collapsed at once. That, too,
is not unusual and pretty much independent of the nature of the society
— from the laments in the Declaration of Independence about the
“merciless Indian savages” to Hitler’s defense of Germany from the “wild
terror” of the Poles.

Who, then, would be concerned by an Iranian deterrent? The answer is
plain: the rogue states that rampage in the region and do not want to
tolerate any impediment to their reliance on aggression and violence.
In the lead in this regard are the U.S. and Israel, with Saudi Arabia
trying its best to join the club with its invasion of Bahrain (to
support the crushing of a reform movement there) and now its murderous
assault on Yemen, accelerating a growing humanitarian catastrophe in
that country.

For the United States, the characterization is
familiar. Fifteen years ago, the prominent political analyst Samuel
Huntington, professor of the science of government at Harvard, warned in
the establishment journal Foreign Affairsthat for much of the world the U.S. was “becoming the rogue superpower… the single greatest external threat to their societies.”
“In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state
today is the United States.” As we have seen, global opinion supports
this judgment by a substantial margin.

Furthermore, the mantle is
worn with pride. That is the clear meaning of the insistence of the
political class that the U.S. reserves the right to resort to force if
it unilaterally determines that Iran is violating some commitment.

These are among the critical matters that should be the focus of
attention in analyzing the nuclear deal at Vienna, whether it stands or
is sabotaged by Congress, as it may well be.

The "ex-gay" myth and claims that sexual orientation are a choice have been among the weapons the Christofascists have used in their war against LGBT equality. Never mind that every legitimate medical and mental health association - i.e., those not bankrolled as fronts for anti-gay "family values" organizations - condemn "ex-gay" therapy and bogus church affiliated "ministries." Slowly states are belatedly beginning to recognize the evils and fraud perpetrated by these voodoo like ministries and unethical therapist. Now Illinois has joined the list of states banning the practice. Here are highlights from a the Human Rights Campaign press release:

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed House Bill 217 into
law, making Illinois the fifth jurisdiction—behind California, New
Jersey, the District of Columbia, and Oregon—to protect LGBTQ youth from
the dangers of conversion therapy. House Bill 217, which protects LGBTQ
youth from mental health providers attempting to change their sexual
orientation or gender identity through these practices, which are linked
to substance abuse, extreme depression, and suicide, was overwhelmingly
approved by the Illinois House of Representatives and General Assembly.

The law will go into effect January 1, 2016. “We are thrilled that
Illinois has joined the rapidly growing number of states leading the way
to protect LGBTQ youth from conversion therapy,” said the National
Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) #BornPerfect Campaign Coordinator and
Staff Attorney Samantha Ames. “Illinois families can now have confidence
that the mental health professional they turn to in times of
uncertainty may not use their state license to profit from their
children’s pain. Most importantly, Illinois kids can now rest easy in
the knowledge that they cannot be forced or coerced to undergo dangerous
and discredited treatments to fix who they are. Today brings us one
step closer to the day when all LGBTQ youth know they were born
perfect.”

No doubt the usual hate merchants will be crying as if someone had pissed in their Cheerios. I wish legislatures would go a step further: make subjecting one's child to ex-gay therapy a felony child abuse offense.

Here in Virginia, LGBT students have little anti-bullying protections. Every attempt to enact meaningful protections die in the GOP controlled House of Delegates and school administrators are left free to giving lip service to banning bullying, yet the bullying goes on and on occasion LGBT students find suicide as their only perceived escape. Would that Coca-Cola would launch a anti-bullying campaign such as the one it has launched in South America with the help of Lance Black of Milk fame and a founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights which helped win marriage equality for all Americans. A piece in The Advocate looks at the Coca-Cola campaign that needs to be replicated far and wide. Here are highlights:

With marriage equality established across the nation, Oscar-winning activist Dustin Lance Black is, once again, taking to the screen to affect change. His upcoming ABC special, When We Rise,
is an eight-hour exploration of the interconnectedness of activists
from the LGBT, civil rights, women's rights, and peace movements,

Black recently directed a pro-equality commercial for Tylenol,
featuring same-sex couples, which was well received in the United
States. He's also channeling his energy south of the border, directing a
series of three short anti-bullying films for Coca-Cola to be aired
across Latin America. One, 'El SMS' (or 'The Text'), revolves around
LGBT youth.

Black discussed the project. On the reaction:

"The campaign in general is doing quite well, but the
response in the LGBT community to 'The Text' was remarkable. I heard
from one of the heads at the ABC network about how much it moved her. I
heard from Cleve Jones, one of the leaders of the LGBT movement, about
how much it moved him. And these aren't people I sent it to. They found
it, which I find remarkable, since it's in Portuguese on the Internet.
For Coca-Cola to take a pro-diversity, pro-equality stance creates a lot
of goodwill in the LGBT community. It's heartwarming for the LGBT
community to see that a global brand would embrace this community
because, let's be honest, there are places in the world that know about
Coca-Cola where it is still a death sentence to be gay."

On cynics
doubting Coca-Cola's sincerity:

"Some of them are very critical of what the
intent of the brand might have been. And I say, 'Yes, their intent was
to win a market, and their intent was to sell their product.' My intent
was to send the message that diversity is a good thing and LGBT people
and their families deserve respect and love. Well, I'm not going to skip
an opportunity to send a pro-equality message just because they're
selling a product alongside it."

The Republican Party already rightly has the reputation of being the party of whites and holding hostility toward non-whites. With the rise of Donald Trump in the GOP presidential candidate polls, the GOP has accelerated its descent to the nastiest positions on immigration and by extension, anti-minority animus. Let's be honest. If the tide of immigrants across America's southern border was made up of white Protestants, we'd likely not be hearing much from the GOP on the issue. Indeed, more white Protestants would help shield the GOP from the angry white males' biggest fear: the day when America is no longer a majority white nation. An editorial in the New York Times looks at the GOP's race to the bottom. Here are highlights:

Before
Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates could deflect tough
questions on immigration with vague promises to secure the border and
oppose all “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

Not
anymore. Mr. Trump has offered a plan to “take back our country” from
what he calls the rapist-murderer-job stealers being exported from
Mexico. He is full of ideas. He would expel 11 million immigrants, and
their families, and let only “the good ones” back in. He would restrict
legal immigration, and impose a national job-verification system so that
everyone, citizens too, would need federal permission to work. He would
build a 2,000-mile border wall and force Mexicans to pay for it. He
would replace the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship by birth with
citizenship by bloodline and pedigree, leaving it to politicians and
bureaucrats to decide what to do with millions of stateless children. He
would flood the country with immigration agents and — it almost goes
without saying — dismantle the economy and shred America’s standing as
an immigrant-welcoming nation.

Because
his plan is so naked — in its scapegoating of immigrants, its barely
subtextual racism, its immense cruelty in seeking to reduce millions of
people to poverty and hopelessness — it gives his opponents the chance
for a very clear moral decision. They can stand up for better values,
and against the collective punishment of millions of innocent
Americans-in-waiting.

But
as Mr. Trump swells in the polls, his diminished opponents are
following in his wake, like remoras on a shark. Several have shuffled
onto the anti-birthright-citizenship bus, including Rick Santorum,
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ben Carson and Gov. Chris Christie of New
Jersey. Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who once fought
for smart bipartisan immigration reform, wants to repeal birthright
citizenship. . . . . As for Mr. Trump’s other restrictionist proposals, several are firmly
lodged again in the playbook of a Republican Party that briefly tried to
reform itself after the Mitt Romney debacle.

Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida understand immigration
issues deeply and presumably want the Latino vote and are well aware of
the dangers of having their party hijacked by far-right ideas. They
should be opposing Mr. Trump at every turn. But in the face of Mr.
Trump’s success, their objections are mild, and oddly muted. The danger
is that when the campaign is over, no matter what becomes of Mr. Trump’s
candidacy, he will have further poisoned the debate with his noxious
positions, normalized an extremism whose toxicity is dulled by
familiarity and is validated by a feckless party.

The solutions are well known. Americans strongly support an earned path
to citizenship for immigrants, strengthening families and industries and
giving strivers the chance to pay this country back.

Ideas like these are realistic, practical and have the added benefit of
being morally defensible. It has long been a hard job to keep the highly
combustible immigration debate on the right side of sanity and reality.
That progress is now being undone before our eyes in the presidential
campaign, courtesy of the faux-populist billionaire who says immigrants
are the reason this country is weak and frightened and going to hell.

Among other things that Jeb "Jebbie" Bush has acting as a sea anchor on his would be presidential campaign is his idiot brother who Jebbie on the one hand wants to pretend he doesn't even know and the other hand is the source of many of Jebbie's supposed policy advisers. A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at George W. Bush's disappearing act as Jebbie disingenuously tries to convince Americans that he isn't simply a warmed over version of his cretin brother. Here are story excerpts:

George W. Bush will not be giving speeches on behalf of his brother
anytime soon. In fact, if the Republican establishment has its way,
Dubya won't be anywhere near a camera for the 2016 election. (Who could
forget his five-minute boilerplate video,
shown in lieu of his attendance at the 2012 Republican National
Convention?) His disappearance from the national spotlight is a strange
phenomenon in contemporary American politics. Under normal
circumstances, Bush would take his place along other ex-presidents as a
national figurehead of some influence, especially with his brother as a
presidential candidate. Yet, his deafening silence is indicative of not
only his disastrous administration, but the GOP’s attempt to erase him
from the country’s memory.

This upcoming election marks the latest great GOP purge of history. The disappearing Dubya isn't a coincidence. It's part of a larger trend of former Republican presidential candidates being faded to black by the party whose mascot, ironically, is the elephant, an animal known for memory and longevity.

Nobody has pulled a more thorough disappearing act than George W. Bush.
Unfortunately for the Republicans, Democrats and
independents do have functioning memory cells. They can recall two
disastrous wars, mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina, the war
profiteering of Vice President Dick Cheney, rampant Wall Street
deregulation, and huge tax cuts for the rich that helped the national
debt to balloon out of control in tandem with defense spending. Unlike
Reagan, there is no health reason for Dubya’s lack of public
appearances. In fact, he is still around and healthy as a horse, perhaps
due to all his vacation time as president. (Bush holds the title of all-time great presidential vacationer, clocking in at more than 400 days of R&R.)

The RNC solution to a mountain of damning evidence is a
campaign to erase and displace—that is, erasing Bush from the public
memory and displacing as many disasters as possible on to Obama. This is
a test of the RNC propaganda machine to see how many people they can
get to believe whatever they want.

The philosophical roots of erasing Bush from GOP history exists with
neoconservatives and their patron saint. Leo Strauss is the
neoconservative philosopher and darling of the Republican party.
Strauss coined such semi-comical terms as reductio ad Hitlerum
(comparing your opponent to Hitler). He also advocated civic
mythologizing as more important than fact-based history in order to
establish a new age of American exceptionalism. As a post World War II
reactionary against Communism, Strauss devised radical theories about
rewriting history. Ironically, his approach of bending and altering
history was similar to Stalinist purges of records and erasing
dissidents from public archives . . . .

If Reagan is an empty suit to be filled like exaggerated feats of
heroism in a conservative piñata, Dubya is a dark political vortex that
sucks away light and hope for another Republican president. Financially,
militarily, diplomatically, and by every managerial standard of
leadership, Dubya is a presidential tragedy brought to you by conservative philosophers.
His two terms were devastating in every major category of judging a
president. There wasn't one element of government that escaped being
damaged or compromised by his policy. By the time Bush left office, it was very easy to buy into the mythology that government doesn't work, because it was many of his advisors who helped wreck the system so thoroughly that a sense of hopelessness pervaded.

What is surprising is that when he was in office the GOP establishment
couldn't get enough of him, tying their party's fate to his misguided
policies. Now that his policies have had time to show results (No Child
Left Behind, Clean Air Act, cutting taxes for the rich and promising
growth), it's Democrats who are desperate to remind the country of the
results of Bush's policies, because we are still suffering from the
consequences.

I swear that there are days that the hypocrisy of the "godly folk," professional Christians and, of course, GOP politicians, truly seems to know no limits. Josh Duggar, former head of hate group Family Research Council's FRC Action has already been revealed to be a sexual predator with victims that included some f his sisters. Now that hackers have revealed information on members of infidelity website, Ashely Madison, we now learn that Duggar (pictured above with Virginia's own queen of mean, Victoria Cobb, and the, in my view, utterly insane "Bishop" Jackson outside of the Norfolk Circuit Court) had a paid up account while he was a member of Ashley Madison. Like so many of the "godly folk," Duggar preached "family values" to the ignorant, gullible and down right stupid, even as he seemingly was looking to have an affair with a woman not his wife. One has to wonder what the next Duggar scandal will be. Meanwhile, based on Duggar's track record, one can't help but wonder when Victoria Cobb will be revealed to have been convicted former Gov. Bob McDonnell's maîtresse-en-titre! Here are highlights from Gawker:

In 2013, conservative reality TV star Josh Duggar—of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting fame—was named the executive director of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group in D.C. which seeks
“to champion marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the
seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society.” During that time, he
also maintained a paid account on Ashley Madison, a web site created for the express purpose of cheating on your spouse.

In May 2015, Duggar was forced to resign afterIn Touch Weekly reported
that he had molested five young girls (four of whom were his own
sisters) beginning in 2002. When the accusations became public, the
family went into crisis mode, insisting that Josh had reformed and that the media covering the claims was intent on “exploiting women.”

Josh himself took to his family’s Facebook page to absolve himself of his past indiscretions and assure the world he was back on a righteous path . . . But data released online in the wake of the hack on Ashley Madison’s
servers certainly seems to show otherwise. Someone using a credit card
belonging to a Joshua J. Duggar, with a billing address that matches the home in Fayetteville, Arkansas owned by his grandmother Mary—a home that was consistently shown on their now-cancelled TV show, and in which Anna Duggar gave birth to her first child—paid a total of $986.76 for two different monthly Ashley Madison subscriptions from February of 2013 until May of 2015.

According to the data, Josh Duggar was paying Ashley Madison in order to find an extramarital partner for the following acts:

The two accounts overlap by a period of a few months. When he launched
the second account, Duggar paid an initial fee of $250 that appears to
have gone toward the purchase of an “affair guarantee” . . . .

There's more if readers want to be totally disgusted. Loving, committed same sex couples are daily denigrated and maligned by "godly folk" like Duggar who claim to want to "protect the sanctity of marriage when meanwhile it is they who are making a mockery of marriage and marriage vows. These people need to become total social and political outcasts.

Click image to enlarge

The only thing that would make all of this more fun would be if Victoria Cobb was also revealed to have had an account!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch is among Virginia's most conservative newspapers. Such being the case, it often hawks reactionary Republican talking points, especially in its editorials. Thus, it was a surprise to see the Times-Dispatch commuting political heresy in an editorial that said court clerks who oppose same sex marriage and refuse to do their jobs need to resign. The piece argues that once one takes a position as a public official, personal rights on religious belief and other issues often go out the window. The same, of course, should be true of organizations accepting taxpayer funds: once you take public dollars, your right to discriminate against members of the public must cease (it's a concept lost on Catholic agencies here in Virginia). Here are editorial highlights:

Kim Davis, the
county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., is carrying out her own form of
massive resistance. Despite a federal court order, she refuses to issue
marriage licenses to gay couples. A few other clerks across the country
are doing the same.

The clerks claim to
be exercising their First Amendment right to religious liberty, just as
a few bakers, photographers and others have exercised theirs by
declining to provide services for gay weddings. But the two situations
are not the same.

Individuals can exercise many
rights as private citizens that they cannot exercise as government
officials. Teachers, for instance, are free to stand on the street
corner on the weekend and urge everyone within hearing distance to
accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. They can’t do the same
thing in the public-school classroom.

Religious scruples are a
legitimate reason for a church not to perform marriage rites for gay
couples. They are not a legitimate grounds for government to deny
marriage licenses; the Supreme Court has ruled that gays and lesbians
have a constitutional right to marry. Davis cannot turn her own
interpretation of Christianity into public policy for Rowan County. If
she sincerely believes that abetting gay marriage is an affront to her
conscience, then she has only one option left: Quit.

Note the interesting correlation made to Davis' conduct and "massive resistance," one of the most shameful parts of Virginia's history when public schools in some counties were closed rather than allow black students attend. There is a direct correlation between racists and segregationist and folks like Davis who are raising the false cry of "religious liberty" whether or not the godly folk are willing to take a good look at themselves int he mirror.

The Economist is a well respected British magazine that includes serious stories and articles so often missing from American publications. Thus, it is significant that the magazine will be hosting the world's first ever global summit on the detrimental economic effects of LGBT discrimination. The event will take place March of 2016 with simultaneous sessions in New York, London and Hong Kong. Past studies have shown that anti-LGBT discrimination and persecution hold localities and nations back economically. It's a message that the Republican Party refuses to hear, especially in economically depressed areas - e.g., Southwest Virginia - where the GOP dominates and furthers discrimination that keeps progressive businesses from thinking twice about relocating to the regions. Here are highlights from Out Magazine on the summit:

The United Kingom-based Economist announced that it
will be hosting the world's first ever global summit on the detrimental
economic effects of LGBT discrimination in March of 2016. The 24-hour
rolling event, Pride and Prejudice,
will be held concurrently across three continents, in New York City,
London, and Hong Kong. It's professed aim is to "challenge policymakers
and industry leaders to rethink the future of the global LGBT movement
and its impact on business."

"The Economist has long supported equal rights for LGBT
individuals. Nearly 20 years ago in our cover story, ‘Let them wed’, we
argued in favor of same-sex marriage. Progress since then has been huge
but uneven—hence the need for a global conversation on the costs of LGBT
discrimination."

Elena Sukacheva, a Senior Vice President, added:

"The Economist will drive to uncover the true cost of discrimination to
businesses and communities through research and discussion with a wider
array of stakeholders than ever before, including business, politics,
academia and civic society. Three consecutive events within a 24-hour
period will be a first for the group."

From its website for the event, the Economist states in part as follows:

Businesses see competitive advantage in creating a reputation for
inclusiveness. Yet global acceptance of LGBT people is not evenly
distributed. Worldwide, the situation ranges from mild intolerance to
hostile rejection and violence. In many businesses, the “glass closet”
remains a formidable barrier to advancement or authenticity. Discussion
about same-sex relationships is controversial in many countries, but in a
globalised world, gay rights are now a significant issue.

Companies in competitive, talent-driven sectors like banking and the law
have developed sophisticated policies to ensure LGBT inclusion, while
other businesses struggle quietly with the need to manage diverse
workforces. Apple, one of the world’s most innovative companies,
believes the creativity associated with diversity helps drive its
success. Can inclusive workplace policies give other companies the same
advantage?

Participants in Hong Kong, London and New York will take part is a
series of globally oriented conversations and tackle the thorny
questions pertinent to their region, with a common question in mind:
what is the cost of LGBT discrimination?

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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